Carmen Benedet: The Case of a Pioneer Art Gallerist in the Spanish Art Circuit of the 1960s

This paper addresses the career of Carmen Benedet, who in 1964 established an art gallery dedicated to contemporary art in the back shop of her family’s business, in the very centre of Oviedo. The opening took place after a period of thorough training in contact with several Madrid businesses (Abril and Neblí), even though her true development would come about out of her close and permanent contact with Juana Mordó, as well as with several other intermediaries of the Spanish artistic commerce (Gaspar, Maeght, and Grupo Quince), a circle in which she inserted herself in an absolutely natural way, despite her peripheral location. Her radically modern gallery concept surprised everyone with her coherence and her bet on the latest tendencies, particularly the Art Informel ones, which she exhibited as if hers were a Madrid-based gallery.